Month: August 2017

Because my focus has always been secondary school, I am frequently asked about primary school. K-6 teachers will ask, “What about us?” On behalf of my classroom colleagues, I will make more of a sustained effort over the coming years to provide quality instructional practices for speaking and listening. Maybe I should start with mentioning the work of two professors at San Diego State University.

Drs. Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher of San Diego State University write about the importance of oral language development. In “Speaking and Listening in Content Area Learning“, the professors offer evidence-based speaking and listening instructional routines that have been useful for students during content area instruction. The rubric/checklist is a good starting point for primary school teachers to begin their journey of teaching the speaking and listening standards. In another article, “It’s All About the Talk“, the professors further discuss collaborative professional development for teachers in order to increase oral academic language use in the classroom.

1. Embedding Oracy Into Your Classroom (It’s Already Happening)

2. Create Discussion Guidelines With Your Students

3. Guide Your Students to Reach a Shared Agreement

4. Help Your Students Analyze Discussion Guidelines

5. Consider How to Group Your Students

6. Create Discussion Roles

7. Create Structured Talk Tasks

8. Build Comfort and Confidence in Your Shy Students

What does the research say about oracy? The head school teacher and cofounder at London 21 lays out the thinking behind the decision to make oracy a primary focus. As a classroom teacher and educational researcher, I like how he puts forward the research while offering the partnerships that have developed since the start. Voice 21 is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the speaking and listening standards, while the head school teacher further mentions using Ignites (think quick TED talks).

Based on my own experience as a classroom teacher and the impact on my curriculum as a speech and debate coach, I can only say that extracurricular is only one way to reach students. The best way to increase the number of students impacted is to include the lessons into your everyday curriculum.

With the advent of the Common Core curriculum in Florida, a principal decided that her middle school students (6-8) would be required to take a speech and debate class each year. The reason for the decision? The principal was a speech major in college, and knows the power of speech and debate in the curriculum. Any talk about how English Language Learners or “special needs” populations would falter with the more rigorous curriculum did not deter the curricular change. A mindset developed at the school that the students that would gain the most are the populations that have historically not been served by speech and debate. Students would learn methods in the speech and debate class, and then use those same methods in their core literacy classes.

Early on in my career I became confused as to why my school called our student early dismissal day as “teacher professional development day”. I hoped that it would be the day that I could learn additional methods as an inservice teacher. What I soon found out is that the day would never become professional development for inservice teachers, but a faculty meeting. Occasionally, there was an attempt by an administrator to offer reading, discussion, and a PowerPoint presentation on how we can move our students’ learning forward. While this type of approach is seen on campus, I began to see this approach off campus as well. This may very well continue, and so I found a recent blog post “6 Keys to Planning and Delivery Effective Professional Learning“. Offering professional learning/PD needs a growth mindset for those who wish to try the top-down approach, I think the assistance is helpful for teachers, and for those who wish to teach teachers.

When I began my journey to clear my teaching credential by entering a BTSA program (induction for preliminary teaching credentials in California), I spoke to my BTSA coach about the problem. He told me that I needed to change my mindset about professional development, and that I would never receive proper PD on campus. Ultimately, I should seek proper PD off campus. Recently looking at the website of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), I came across a blog post that I wish I would have known about many years ago. “Going Beyond the Stitch Fix Approach to PD” is an excellent read for a teacher to understand the growth mindset as a classroom teacher. It makes me wonder why we look for the “top down” approach to professional development, and not the growth mindset approach that we as teachers will turn and ask our students to develop.

After years of trying to find this unicorn of off-campus PD, I would luckily hear about the National Writing Project. There are a couple of programs offered at universities in Los Angeles, but I was encouraged by a colleague to apply for the Cal State Northridge Writing Project site. I applied and entered the Invitational Summer Institute directed by Dr. Kathy Rowlands. Regardless of grade level or subject matter, I cannot say enough about the Writing Project and the profound impact it creates for inservice teachers. I can only now encourage classroom teachers to find their professional development unicorn, and give the National Writing Project a chance to create that growth mindset.

2. Imagine for a moment that, despite the confidence of the person proposing it, the statement is false. Search for situations or contexts where the statement would not be true.

Ex. Could one ever have money and not be virtuous? Could one ever have no money and be virtuous?

3. If an exception is found, the definition must be false or at least imprecise.

Ex. Is it possible to have money and be a crook? Is it possible to be poor and be virtuous?

4. The initial statement must be nuanced to take the exception into account.

Ex. People who have money can be described as virtuous only if they have acquired it in a virtuous way, and some people with no money can be virtuous when they have lived through situations where it was impossible to be virtuous and make money.

5. If one finds exceptions to the improved statements, the process should be repeated. The truth should be impossible to disprove. It is by finding out what something is not that one comes closest to understanding what it is.

Socrates described a “correct belief” as an opinion if one could not respond to objections. We must understand why something is true, and we must understand why the alternatives are false.

Living in The Netherlands gave me a chance to travel throughout the country visiting multiple schools and teachers’ classrooms. Going to debate tournaments on the weekends to observe secondary students debating all led to my project of sharing Dutch speaking and debate strategies with U.S. teachers.

“Why the Debate? How the Study of Argumentation and Debate Increases Language Proficiency” Summative Report includes:

The Final Project is created as a “script” that is adjustable based on the audience of the professional development seminar. The goal of the Inquiry Project is to transfer what I learned in The Netherlands to helping classroom teachers in the United States. The first opportunity to do so will be at the National Speech & Debate Association’s Education Conference in Denver, Colorado August 24-27. The workshop titled “International Best Practices: Strategies for Teaching Debate to First and Second Language Learners” will share Dutch strategies for teaching English Language Learners. The Fulbright Inquiry Project allows me the flexibility to move in the direction of teaching teachers based on the specific topic.

"All views and information presented herein are my own and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program nor the U.S. Department of State."